Educational appliance



Deg; 27, 1938. P. s. GROSS EDUCATIONAL APPLIANCE Filed Aug. 8, 195e r9INVENTOR ATTOR N EYS Patented Dec. 27, 1938 UNETED STATES ATENT oFFlcsThis invention relates to educational appliances and more specificallyto an apparatus which is designed primarily to teach the touch system oftypewriting.

A further object is to provide an appliance of this character which maybe manufactured and sold at a reasonably low price and which will bemost ei'oient in the performance of its function.

With these and other objects in view, the invention consists in certainnovel features of construction and combinations and arrangements ofparts, all of which will be more fully hereinafter described and pointedout in the claim.

1 In the accompanying drawingf appliance;

Fig. 2 is a fragmentary plan view on a somewhat enlarged scale lookingdown upon the intermediate plate of the device; and

Fig. 3 is an enlarged view in section on the staggeredline 3-3 of Fig.1.

The reference character A is employed to indicate generally a board,which comprises three superimposed plates I, 2 and 3. These platesV mayof course be of any suitable material and in the cheaper form cardboardmay be used. The plate I constitutes a backing plate on which theintermediate plateZ and the top plate 3 are secured by adhesive or inany other manner. 'I'he top plate 3 is provided with openings 4correspending in number and in general shape to the keys of atypewriter, and the backing plate I in line with these openings 4 isprovided with characters 5 corresponding to the characters of thekeyboard of a typewriter. The term character is used in its broadestsense to indicate letters, numerals and symbols such as are commonlyemployed. The intermediate plate 2 is formed with elongated slots 6 inwhich movable shutter disks or shutters l are located. These shutterdisks may be moved to a position back of the openings 4 to show thecharacters 5, or they may be moved away from this position to expose thecharacters. It is to be understood that the shutters are loosely mountedin the slots so that a tipping or tilting movement of the board A willcause all of the shutters to move by gravity to closed or open position.

The board A and more particularly the top plate 3 is provided withnumerals 8 Ibelow or at least adjacent to the openings 4. 'Ihesenumerals l, 2, 3 and 4 which are thus employed indicate the fingers ofthe hand which are to be used in manipulating the shutters 1.

The top plate 3 is provided with a field 9, which Figure 1 is a planview illustrating my improved field is divided by a line IIJ into whatmay be known as a right-hand space II and a left-hand space i2, and onsaid plate 3 a space I3 is provided containing the caption Space bar,which is also divided by a line I4 into a right-hand space I5 and aleft-hand space I6, indicating by this terminology the hand which isused to strike the portions of the space bar. Four of the openings 4 ineach of the spaces II and I2 are located within what may be termed ahome space. That is to say, in the right-hand space I I a home space I1is provided for the fingers of the right hand and in the left-hand spaceI2 a home space I8 is provided for the fingers of the left hand. Thesevarious spaces may be more clearly differentiated by colors or othermeans and it is to be understood of course that the exact location andarrangement of parts may be varied to suit conditions. i

The primary use of the board, as above stated, is to teach the touchsystem of typewriting, and the initial position of the fingers of theright hand is in the openings 4 of the home space Il, and of the fingersof the left hand in the openings 4 of the home space I8. It will benoted that these `openings in the home spacers are numbered 1 2, 3 and4, respectively, indicating the position of the lingers of the hand, andthe other openings of the board are numbered 1, 2, 3 and 4 indicatingthat the shutters of these several openings are to be operated by thefingers which correspond to the nger positions in the spaces I'l and I8.In other words, the index iinger is numbered l and this finger is to beused to operate all of the shutters marked 1; the middle finger isnumbered 2 and is to be used to operate all of the shutters marked 2,etc., and thus the operator knows that he or she must use thatparticular finger to operate the shutters under the openings having acorresponding number. It is not intended that the finger always returnto the home space, but it is to be understood that the initial positionof the fingers is in these home spaces and there is a mental concept ofthe distance fromV these home spaces to the other openings in the board,thus giving the greatest amount of freedom and utility to the action ofthe fingers in rapidly typing by the touch system.

It will be noted by reference to the drawing that the shutters 'I to beoperated by the right hand have a movement which is directed downwardlyand to the left, while the shutters to be operated by the left hand havea movement which is downwardly and to the right.

In the touch system of typewriting, the four lingers, eliminating thethumb, rest lightly upon or hover over the home keys, as shown in thespaces I1 and i8. When an assigned nger moves to an assigned shutter,as, for instance, the little nger of the left hand moving to the Qletter, the index linger, middle finger, andnger adjacent to the middlenger rest lightly on the home or guide keys spaces while the littlefinger reaches up to clutch down the shutter covering the letter Q; thusthe only movement in depressing the shutter covering the letter Q Willbe one going downwardly towards the right and towards the center of theoperators body. The same holds true when an attempt is made to move theshutter covering the letter P on the right. Here the little lnger of theright hand moves downwardly and to the left, which is the naturalmovement, and towards the center of the body.

While I have illustrated and described what I believe to be thepreferred embodiment of my invention, it is obvious that various slightchanges may be made with` regard to the form and arf rangement of partswithout departing from my invention, and hence I do not limit myself tothe precise details set forth but consider Ymyself at liberty to makeVsuch changes and alterations as fairly fall within the spirit and scopeof the claim.

I claim:

An educational appliance including a board having openings in'its topcorresponding to the standard keyboard of a typewriter,v said board backof said openings containing characters corresponding tothe characters ofthe keyboard, and sliding shutters back of said openings adapted when inone position to cover the characters and when in another position toexpose the characters,V said board having an intermediate plate havingelongated slots therein for the accommodation and longitudinal movementof the shut- Y ters, the slots to accommodate the shutters for the righthand extending downwardly and to the left and those to accommodate theshutters of the left hand extending downwardly and to the right, wherebyas the result of this arrangement the shutters to be operated by thelingers of the right hand are. movable in a path downwardly and to theleft and the shutters adapted to be moved by the lingers of the lefthand are mov# able downwardly and to the right.

PHILIP S. GROSS.

